Strike Three comic

Link to pixton post: http://Pixton.com/ic:owfz4xee

Weblog post 9/27 Smart phone app Phone Story

Phone Story is an application available on smart phones that satirically shows the horrors of the process necessary to extract the mineral Coltan, which is used in almost all phones today. The app’s purpose is not  to actually be played. Its purpose is to raise money for the people affected by the horrid process of Coltan extraction and to raise awareness of this social justice issue. The app has four games aimed at educating the users by taking them through the process of extracting Coltan. The four games are; extraction in Congo, assembly in massive Chinese factories, the United States obsession with consumerism, and E-waste in Pakistan. The developers of this app, Molleindustria, receive 70% of the money paid to acquire this app. With that 70% they donate all of it to worker’s organizations and non-profit charities who are fighting company abuse. An example of one these companies is Foxconn. An example of the philanthropy of Molleindustria is they donated $6,000 to a Chinese worker for Foxconn for serious injuries received from a suicide attempt. The worker, Tian Yu, attempted to take her own life by jumping off the roof of the Foxconn factory in 2010. Phone Story was taken off the Apple app store only three hours after its launch due to the negative press caused by this app. However Phone Story is still available on the Android app market for $1.00, a small fee for a good cause.

Link to website: http://www.phonestory.org/#about

Discussion questions for group six on 9/20

1. What explains the coming and going of democracy over the past twenty five hundred years?

2. Why was democracy only apparent in smaller city-states, and not across entire countries in its earlier years?

3. After reading about democracy and how other countries set up democracy over the years, do you feel better or worse about the way the US is set up?

Weblog post 9/20 E-waste in the United States

The article I have selected is from Forbes.com and is about E-waste in the United States written by Phillip Fava who works for an E-waste recycling corporation, Suffolk Industrial Recovery Corp. This article is from December 2011 so it is somewhat recent. This article explains how E-waste is being increased every year due to technologies rapid advancement. Technology is being advanced much quicker than in the past and we as a country have much more E-waste because of it. This could help our economy in the next couple of years Fava argues, and I agree as well. In 2002 the E-waste recycling industry contributed less than $1 billion dollars and 6,000 jobs to the United States economy. In 2010 the recycling industry generated $5.2 billion dollars and 30,000 jobs to the United States economy. About $4.2 billion dollars of extra revenue is due to the recycling industry. This is a large increase in only 8 years and is a good addition to the economic growth of America. In 2002 only 600,000 tons of E-waste was recycled. In 2010 a whopping 3.5 million tons of E-waste was recycled. I think this is a significant increase and it is good that there are companies in the United States who are recycling E-waste. A part of this article that surprised me was only 26% of E-waste originated from households. I thought this number would be much bigger, the other 74% came from businesses, which also surprised me.

Link to article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/philfava/2011/12/20/new-study-on-e-waste-in-the-united-states/

Weblog post 9/13 Green and not so Green manufacturing companies

The article I have selected is from Greenpeace.org and is from October 2010. This article lists the top eighteen manufacturers based on what each company is currently doing to make their products safer, their policies for the future to limit the toxic chemicals in their products, what programs they offer to help recycle, carbon footprint of the company, and even the energy efficiency of their newest models. Most of the companies on this list are actively trying to make safer products by reducing the chemicals in their products which was a surprise to me. I just found out about this issue not even a week ago, yet these very large companies clearly new about it and have policies or programs in place some through 2020. I did not know many of these companies had any take back program in place when in fact most of some sort of program in place. I currently own a Samsung laptop and before that a HP laptop, yet I have never heard of any take back program from either of these companies. I feel that these programs are not advertised enough, which is confirmed by the data from the pdf from Greenpeace.org. It seems most of these companies offer programs in the US, but lack programs elsewhere in the world. I will certainly be on the lookout for a take back program in the future when trying to correctly recycle my old technology.

Link to article: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/toxics/hi-tech-highly-toxic/company-report-card/

PDF that explains in detail what companies are doing right or wrong: http://www.greenpeace.org /usa/Global/usa/planet3/publications/toxics/Oct2010-Rankings.pdf

My name is Kyle Shaffer, I am from Brook Park, Ohio and if you would like to contact me by email it is kshaffer17@jcu.edu. I do not have a preference for my name, most call me Kyle, but others refer to me as Shaffer, or Shaff. My interests include eating, cooking, soccer, working out, and telling jokes. I plan on helping out with the men's soccer team this year, as I am big on soccer. In order to take risks in a course I would have to feel comfortable with the professor and my classmates around me, and be in a setting where people are willing to ask questions. I firmly believe that the most important invention in history was the printing press. The printing press revolutionized the education of people and made books much cheaper and easier to access. Technologies essential to my life are my iPhone, computer, Internet, and electricity. I have a decent amount of experience from computers so I would put my computer experience as 4/10. I do not think I have as much experience with digital media, I would put my experience at 2/10. I no longer have a Facebook page, but I do currently have a twitter account, but no other social media. Based off of that I believe my experience is a 4/10. I have two questions for Dr. Shutkin. 1. If you were not an education professor what do you think you would have become? 2. What is your favorite sport, if you have one what is your favorite team/team you follow the most?